


let the games begin

by Sharkchimedes



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, back at it again with my backstory headcanon soup, canon compliant if you count martinex not having an explicit mcu backstory as free game, ends pre-canon as well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-16 23:10:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20610926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sharkchimedes/pseuds/Sharkchimedes
Summary: Martinex's sentence from the Nova to watch a quiet library suddenly gets very interesting when a space pirate visits, and what comes after.Or: run away from your community service detail to plan heists and eat calcium blocks with a bird person!





	let the games begin

**Author's Note:**

> tis the season for trying to get some of my drafts finished!

Martinex had worked for the First Xandarian Branch of the Nova-sponsored library on Regelus II for the past three years now.

It wasn’t  _ terrible _ work. It paid enough for him to eat, sleep, and survive, and here that was pretty much all you could ask for.

But it was boring as hell, and not  _ exactly _ his first career choice.

What he’d done to end up here wasn’t much- a petty offense, not even enough to warrant a Nova officer dropping by the planet to record it, just a send-off into the records system. It absolutely wasn’t a Kyln-able offense, not by a long shot, and despite even that danger sometimes he wished he  _ had _ made it to that level.

If only so he didn’t have to spend the rest of his waking life sitting here at this desk.

Sure, the library wasn’t the  _ worst _ place. Martinex’s own species hypothetically were fascinated with knowledge.

(Not that he’d know. Martinex’s was one of a handful, if that many, Pluvians left in the galaxy. His home planet had been one of the uncounted casualties of the many conflicts between the Kree and whoever they’d been fighting at the time. 

The Nova Corps, as they usually did, had taken whatever survivors they found and scattered them across a number of their usual small worlds that Xandar laid claim to. The Nova system sucked, and as Martinex didn’t have any surviving family, he’d ended up with a bunch of other mixed-up kids on Regelus. He doubted that if there  _ were _ other Pluvians left, they were any less mixed-up than he was.

Basically all he knew about Pluvians was the little brochure he’d gotten with his bag when he got here. It contained a picture of Pluto, two paragraphs on scientific progresses hypothetically made by Pluvians, and something else Martinex couldn’t read because the ink was smudged.

He could remember the first week he’d been on Regulus, when he’d snuck out of the home the Nova officer had left him at and found a little creek. He’d wadded up the pamphlet and threw it into the water, and felt a profound and vicious sense of self-righteousness.

And that was as much as he still knew about the whole business.)

But it was hard to focus when his eyes kept trying to swim or mix the letters around, so Martinex could only stand to read in short bursts or on limited texts that for some reason didn’t make him feel like he was unable to read at all.

There were  _ some _ audio records that could be played, but part of the whole point of the place was that so few of these texts had been translated or uploaded into other forms. The ones that were audio where usually the dullest. So Martinex was stuck.

He’d gotten very good at making little animals out of sheets of paper, and organizing his desk. One of the things he wasn’t allowed to do as per his sentencing was watch the holovids at work, so he made do with what he had. Even if that was just pushing paper stack a to paper stack b’s location, making the hundreth paper orloni, or listening to court record eighty-five of several thousand.

The only real entertainment was seeing the rare off-planet scholar come visit in all their stuffy glory. It was rare, but there were some documents that only existed here, be it through the native Regelian’s wishes or the Nova’s shit record keeping for things like libraries. Martinex had to keep himself from laughing at the academics- how once upon a time, he might have been one of them.

It was ridiculous. 

And then there was the returning guest.

Martinex had first noticed him when he caught a shadow in one of the more abandoned corners. It was the sort of corner that contained information that was either common knowledge, or was so specific it was an uninteresting slog for anyone who didn’t know what they were looking for. 

He was  _ pretty _ sure this guy had been stealing some of them too. Things seemed to just go missing: at first, he’d only noticed because one had been the only thing on that shelf, later he’d started sweeping those areas to see how many really were gone.

Not that Martinex really gave a shit about it, but if  _ too _ many things started to go missing, then he’d rather not get dragged back in front of a judge and actually get sent off world. Less boring, maybe, but Martinex wasn’t quite to the desperation of prison, thanks.

So he watched and kept a little list of titles and records he'd noticed going missing, organized by genre and then by “last time it saw the light of day.” 

He had to admit, even if he wasn’t paying the most attention, this guy was pretty good at going unnoticed. It wasn’t until after a few things of actual value had gone missing that he’d even noticed, after all.

And given that it had only been about a week, it was damn impressive. Martinex wished he’d had that skill before he’d pulled the stunt that got him here.

Maybe he'd ask about that.

\---

One day, Martinex got an idea. He’d been sitting at the desk, looking at the inventory he’d been taking each time the mystery thief came in- which now numbered above a dozen- when it came to him.

It was probably a dumbass idea, given that he was pretty sure the man carried one of the old-fashioned kind of guns- the kind that fired metal instead of charged plasma- but he was bored out of his mind and it seemed like it’d at least liven the day up a bit.

He waited until the man was back in one of the corners, and left the desk. It was pretty easy to figure out where he was, given that he only seemed to be interested in about two small sections, and within a few minutes he had a clear-ish view. 

“Y’know, you could actually check them out, and  _ then _ steal them.” Martinex said, peering around the edge of the row.

For a second, Martinex considered that may this  _ wasn’t _ a good idea. 

The stranger was  _ definitely _ from off-world, and very clearly not with the Nova either. He was wearing some kind of uniform, and although it was black and dark blue, the emblem was on the shoulder and was a golden flame. His hair was dark, almost black, but had hints of fade where it was brown going grey.

Martinex had no idea what the blades on his shoulders were, but they were putting off little bits of light, which was another thing  _ not quite Nova but definitely dangerous either way _ .

And there  _ was _ one of the older style guns holstered at his hip, and if Martinex had to make a guess, he'd bet he was likely armed to the teeth.

He was also staring at Martinex now, although he seemed more amused than startled. The man closed the book he was holding, and regarded him for a minute. “So we finally meet, then? I was wondering how long it would take.” 

“You were waiting for me to notice?” Martinex frowned. That wasn’t  _ usually _ how things went- he would have given anything to have gone unnoticed. 

“I knew you had. It was more of a wait to see if you’d do anything about it.” The man smiled.

Martinex had the feeling that a smarter, wiser man would walk away now and call the Nova.

And well, the thing was, he would  _ like _ to have done that.

But he wanted to know more.

So tough on the Nova.

\---

It turned out the man’s name was Stakar Ogord, and he was essentially a pirate. When Martinex had pointed out that books weren’t very profitable on the galactic market, the man had laughed and said that no, his crew was out dealing with that, this was just his idea of a break.

Martinex couldn’t imagine how it would be a break, but he was also the one who’d gotten caught committing a minor crime and sentenced to purgatory in the library, so who was he to judge?

He listened to Martinex when he explained how he’d ended up here, and looked over his collection of orloni figures, and laughed at his descriptions of the scholars who’d come before. In return, Stakar explained the basics of their operation on Regulus III, which was apparently where the actual operation they were running was.

He seemed surprised when Martinex pointed out several logistical flaws in it, too, and more than that- pleased. After that, Stakar prompted him with another scenario and listened as Martinex slowly worked out a solution to it.

There was a lot more of that over the next few days, sprinkled with stories from Stakar’s time in the stars. Martinex didn’t want to say he  _ hung _ on it, but it was the most interesting thing he’d heard in years, and was the sort of thing he’d always  _ wanted _ to hear.

Of course, all good distractions came to an end on Regulus II sometime, and so did the really great stuff.

This time, it didn’t come in the form of a date notice, but it was still because of time. Everything in his life had been dictated by  _ time _ .

“Unfortunately, we're going on in the next few cycles.” Stakar shook his head. “It's been a decent enough system, but for us, it's better to keep moving. Time to move on to fresher skies."  _ Before the Nova run through here _ went unsaid.

Martinex tried not to let show on his face that his heart was sinking, but his facáde must’ve been as transparent and clear as his outer skin, because the captain gave him a gentle smile. “I know I've become something of an expected bother, and I'm sorry to see you go. Your talents are wasted here.” 

“Talents?” Martinex snorted. “I'll be lucky to not die in this building. Even when I've hit my service, there's shit all to do on this planet. An’ getting away from it'll be near impossible.”

The admiral hummed, drumming his fingers on the table. Then he stopped. “Not if you’ve got a way off it already, it won’t.” 

Martinex blinked, and then a grin split his face.

\---

So, as it turned out, space wasn’t just cool.

It’s  _ breath-taking _ . On Regulus, the atmosphere meant that you could see some stars, but only the closer and brightest. Even if you took the long treks up into the hills, the view wasn’t enough to be worth it.

Out here, in space, you could see  _ everything _ .

Martinex stared out the viewport. 

Stakar stood next to him, arms folded behind his back, smiling. “Y’know, where I’m from, those who left were considered to be a little bit… well, crazy. I can’t imagine having stayed there, living on those cliffs my whole life… Not that I don’t miss it, sometimes, but…”

“How can you miss it when there’s all of this?” Martinex finished. 

The admiral nodded. “Exactly. We’ve got starlust, Marty, both of us. We could never stay planetside for long.”

(Over the years, he finds out in bits and pieces from Aleta and Stakar both that, like him, they don’t  _ have _ a home to go back to. The planet they were born on is gone for them, just like Pluto is for him, destroyed by invasion and war. Even if they wanted to just touch the ashes, Arcturus is a millennia away, and Pluto is behind a blockade.

They're all carrying ghosts of former lives, and things that would never be, cobbling together a life among the stars.

It explains a lot.)

\---   
  


“This ship is  _ massive _ .” Martinex stared at the layout in front of him, fingers refracting the lines as he tried to turn it for another angle. Ah, right- he used this tech so little he forgot it wasn't made for species without typical skin. One of the few things he  _ did _ know about himself, and it was an annoyance. “How do you even keep track of it all? Must take an equally massive crew.”

Stakar stood a few yards away, thumbing through a book he’d pulled off a shelf. It was one of at least a hundred crammed into the storage compartment- the ravager admiral seemed as if he’d taken it over as some kind of study.

Most of the room was filled with the same sort of racks Martinex had seen in other nooks across the ship, but where the usual short held tools and spare console parts and charges for reloading the m-ships. But here, they were covered in boxes and crates of things he couldn’t identify. Massive things, tiny things, and the stacks on stacks on  _ stacks _ of books.

The books Martinex had gone missing, he now knows, had been joining up with this massive collection. Some people hoarded food containers back on Regulus- Stakar seemed to be going for a universal record on bound papers. 

“That's part of what I was going to speak to you about.” The pirate looked up and smiled. “I need a second officer.”

“You don't already have one?” Martinex frowned, studying the model again. Maybe there were some gloves somewhere that could register on the screen? He poked at the diagram again, huffed when nothing happened, and turn to fully look at Stakar.

“Yes and no- Aleta and I used to manage together, but she's going on her own now. Bridge crew is good, but I don't think any of them would appreciate being pulled off that. And they definitely wouldn’t appreciate me splitting it up between all of them and the other officers.” He shook his head. “It's going to be rough going, Marty, I won't lie to you. But I think you’d have the knack for it, and I’m not going to throw you under the engine, so to speak.”

“Well, it’ll definitely be more interesting than sitting at that stupid desk.” He grinned. “And it’s not like I have anywhere else to go.”

Being second officer comes with a shiny badge, too, a flame recently pressed from the tailor. It glitters and casts little pinpricks of light across his cabin, a mix of starlight coming in through the viewport, and the flickering lights on the ceiling. Nicer uniform too.

And a cabin up in the command and bridge crew area, where most of the officers stayed. Martinex’s was on the same hall as Stakar’s, and the rest of it seemed fairly quiet. He didn’t have time to wonder about that, though, because then the work started up.

It was  _ interesting _ work, far more so than anything he’d been doing under the Nova’s program. It’s ship manifests and communications between multiple ships- the  _ Starhawk _ , Stakar had explained, was simply the head of a small but growing fleet of vessels that were the Ravagers- mission reports and the like. He’s got a bit of a grace period before he’s going to be responsible for making arrangements for the  _ Starhawk _ himself

But he’s got the same problem that he’d hoped might go away once he was off Regulus: he can’t see quite right. Things kept switching lines, characters were just  _ off _ , and the headaches he’d had as a kid came back full force.

There was only one thing he could really do.

He told Stakar.

\---

Martinex had already been scheduled to see the doc as per standard protocol- making sure he hadn’t carried anything contagious onto the ship, or lice or anything like that- but after he explained the vision “thing” to Stakar, the admiral had come with him.

“It could be anything- a slight inclusion in the formation of the eye, or something to do with the brain. I'm sorry, I just don't know enough about Pluvians to say.” The  _ Starhawk's _ hired doctor shook xir head. Xe was another of the many humanoid species that roamed the stars, though not one that Martinex knew from his bored journeys through the ‘net. 

But since he was trying to stay focused on not squirming too much, it wasn’t as if he was paying all that much attention.

“I'm already looking for any records I can find for his general bios, Gimar.” Stakar was watching from a few feet away, leaned against a counter with a hawkish look. He’d led Martinex down here and introduced them, and had stayed to hear the verdict.

Xe nodded. “That will be most helpful, Stakar. I will be sure to keep it under the lock.” Martinex felt xem prode at him again. “Beyond that, he is clear for duty. Thank you for your patience, T'Naga.”

Martinex gave a sheepish smile. “Thanks for trying, Doc.” For a second, the fear hit him. He'd already told Stakar about his reading- wanted to be honest with him for all the pirate had done for him already- but would confirmation change anything?

“Nonsense!” Stakar came over, clapping a gloved hand onto his shoulder. “There are plenty of ways to adapt, Marty. We all have to. We just have to find yours.”

Martinex hadn’t been so sure, but then on their next raid- an attack against an aging Nova cruiser on it’s way to being decommissioned- Stakar had wrenched a whole panel out of the bridge and brought it back, looking rather proud of himself as he passed it off to Friskar to install into one of the bridge consoles and route into the ship’s main computer system.

Turned out that the Nova had programs for translating voice into text and back, and even if the one they’d gotten was older and shakier, it made Martinex’s job  _ infinitely _ easier. 

He  _ did _ not cry. That definitely did not happen.

He would admit to hugging Stakar, though.

\---

Martinex’s introduction to Aleta cemented the rumors he’d heard for several months about her being a deadly assassin who had a very limited number of soft places in her armor. Despite his having been hired on to take over some of her old duties, Martinex had never actually met her. His experience with her was listening to Stakar go on about her when he was drunk and soppy as anything, and occasionally going over a report from the second clan’s flagship. 

Stakar’s drunken ramblings painted her as an angel with a vicious streak he was  _ very much _ enamoured with, and the whispers and the reports showed a cold-edged tenacity and efficiency that almost scared him.

(Okay, they  _ did _ scare him. Even the  _ Starhawk _ had a couple m-ships damaged while he’d been shadowing Stakar getting ready for his full appointment to first mate, but the reports off the  _ Cliffjumper _ didn’t even report the loss of a bit off a wing.)

Till that day on the bridge, anyway. 

Martinex had been sat at his console, checking over the last few reports he’d entered to make sure they didn’t have any glaring errors. Sure, the Nova tech Stakar had stolen for him  _ worked _ , but an error in some of them would mean the difference between running out of fuel before a jump, or even hitting the wrong jump direct into controlled space. 

It was better to be safe than dead, or making a new plan to break the whole flagship out of the Nova’s hands. And if it were the Kree, then they couldn’t even count on being  _ that _ lucky.

He’d been correcting an error he’d found, when the door to the bridge opened. Now, that wasn’t unusual, but it was a little weird when no one announced themselves. 

And when Martinex saw someone duck by his console. That  _ was _ weird.

So he leaned to look and froze.

He’d seen pictures of Aleta before- Stakar had some actual prints on his desk in his storeroom. He knew it was her because there was only one other person in the fleet- probably in the whole galaxy- who wore solar blades, and there was definitely only one woman with a captain’s flame who wore dark green leathers. 

Aleta looked like a hunting animal, waiting to strike, down in a crouch and looking around the edge of his console as she looked for whoever her unfortunate quarry was.

She caught him looking and put a finger to her lips. 

Martinex sure as fuck wasn’t gonna say no to  _ her, _ so he just stiffened up and looked back at the report. 

The next time he glanced over, she was gone, but Freskar over at the console that monitored the  _ Starhawk _ ’s internal systems looked nervous all of a sudden.

He glanced over at Stakar, who he was pretty sure hadn’t noticed yet. The admiral was still standing down the bridge at the navigator’s console, and they were hashing it out over whether the m-ships could make the next target or if they needed to send a drop ship with them.

That conversation was brought to an abrupt halt as the navigator screeched, and Stakar went down in a crash of metal-on-metal-on-solar-blade as Aleta pounced on him. 

“‘Leta! You could’ve killed me.” But the admiral was laughing, and had slung an arm around her as he shifted to get the solar blades to stop making pings on the floor. 

“Relax, we both know you can’t die of a heart attack.” She grinned down at him. “What I do know, though, is you ought to just concede and send the drop-ship. Argument would’ve been done a half hour ago.”

Any response he might have given was silenced as Aleta leaned down and kissed him. Martinex could actually  _ see _ him relax like he did when he was drunk and on a rambling soliloquy about her.

The rest of the bridge had smartly gone back to working after most had looked over in concern that maybe the admiral really  _ had _ had a heart attack. Those who Martinex knew were seasoned crew seemed amused, but Freskar still looked a little nervous, which he couldn’t blame him for. They’d been recruited around the same time, and it was definitely his first time seeing the admiral get bowled over like a twig.

Martinex could swear Stakar was blushing. Aleta leaned down and said something into his ear, and Stakar’s cheeks went dark with ichor. 

(He’d found out the fun way that Stakar didn’t bleed your standard starfaring blue when he got shot- rather a thick and golden substance. It smelled like ozone and it was horrifying and near impossible to scrub off your leathers. 

Martinex himself was full of liquid calcium, so who was he to judge, but at least his came out clear and not in globs of borderline  _ sludge. _ )

She pulled Stakar up, and Aleta glanced at him as the two Ogords passed by him, on the way off the bridge. “You and I will talk later, T’Naga.”

Martinex gulped.

As it turned out, Martinex heard from them  _ both _ sooner than whenever she’d meant for later to be, by way of “now he knew why the rest of the upper brass kept their quarters in the other hall.”

By the end of the shift, he’d taken his blanket and gone down to the bridge lounge, and curled up on one of the larger couches.

One of the senior technicians patted him on the shoulder when they left to go to their own bunk for the first shift.

Martinex marked this as perhaps the first “con” to running away from Regulus to become a criminal, but fell asleep before he could get to into the train of thought about how being displaced by the Nova led to one being in such a situation in the first place.

\---

Aleta was somehow less scary than he’d expected  _ and _ the most terrifying person he’d ever met. Not that Regulus had been swarming with very threatening people. The only people Martinex had ever grown up scared of consisted of two merchants who didn’t much care for the rowdier kids from the community house down the road.

And it wasn’t as if she  _ threatened _ him. 

She was just… intimidating. Where Stakar seemed to radiate a calm, approachable persona, Aleta walked like she could at any moment decide you were in the way, and remove you. 

Their “conversation” mostly consisted of Aleta watching him for a few minutes in the near empty mess before she nodded, and put a hand on his shoulder. “Stakar doesn’t make watching his back easy.  _ And _ he has this habit of getting distracted easily. If you can handle that, then you can handle anything else that gets thrown at you.”

And with that, she gets up and leaves.

Martinex stays seated for a few minutes, and then relaxed when he realized that was approval.

(It doesn’t take him very long to figure out what she’d meant by both  _ doesn’t watch his back _ and  _ easily distracted _ , and they also get to add “Pluvians can slowly regenerate missing body parts given enough time and calcium.) 

\---

“Were you aware that Pluvians have elemental abilities?” Stakar was perched in one of the larger chairs in the lounge behind the bridge. The man was frowning at something on the page below him, and his thumb tapped at the words. 

“We have what now?” Martinex looked up from the report from the 79th clan that he’d been reading. It’s been several years now, since he took over the position of first mate aboard the  _ Starhawk _ , and the worst job is still dealing with the annual call-ins from the rest of the fleet. 

There are about 86 clans these days, coming in all variations of multi-generational ravager to signed-on former independent elements and ranging from deep spacer crews they only hear from that once a year to the other three flame-prong ships that they see multiple communications from a day.

And only about  _ half _ of them turned in coherent reports.

Hence the weekly nights he would sit up in the lounge after his shift, working through all of them just so he had it easier in the morning. Sympathetic bridge officers would bring up coffee and calcium cubes, and Stakar would usually join him if they were working the same shift with research of his own.

Stakar didn’t reply, still frowning down at the page, before he clicked his teeth and made one of the near-chirping sounds that he tended for when he was up against something he didn’t understand. 

Martinex still didn’t get  _ how _ he made those sounds, but he supposed that was the difference between “‘what am I’ humanoid” and “avian humanoid”. He’d found out a couple years ago that when Stakar and Aleta said  _ Starhawk _ , they meant  _ actual hawk traits _ . The word for what the two of them were was Arcturian, and that meant they were pretty different than the Xandarians they masqueraded as.

A few minutes later, and Stakar finally stood and moved over next to Martinex, tapping at a page in a book. "This says that in addition to being able to regulate your own body temperature, you can also conduct it as output. Fire and ice.” 

Martinex squinted, slowly following the line across the book. Stakar had been writing in it, which was a little hard to filter out, but when he finished the paragraph, he frowned. “I dunno- I’ve never done anything particularly elemental before.”

“We could find out.” Stakar said, nodding towards the upper deck where most of the crew came to practice hand-to-hand and their aim.

In the end, they end up both in Gimar’s sick bay, Stakar with burns and Marty with stress fractures in one hand, but they’re both grinning like maniacs, so Gimar skips the lecture and just sighs to emphasis xer annoyance as xe works. 

(The fire and ice becomes a special, secret thing that Martinex only whips out on rare occasions, like Stakar’s own light-related abilities. They’re just for situations where there aren’t gonna be witnesses and the need is  _ real _ .

On the other hand, Martinex gets a lot of use out of being able to change his own body temp.)

\---

It's been a couple decades now, since Martinex had met Stakar on good ol' Regulus V. It was now hard to picture himself as the green recruit who'd followed the Admiral into a life of piracy and various other crimes. 

It was even harder to imagine himself as a kid, bored out of his crystal skull and throwing shredded pieces of pamphlet into a creek behind the Nova home for displaced youth.

Sitting at his console on the  _ Starhawk _ , though, it's hard to even bring himself to think of it at all. How can he, when there's mission logs to be compiled, a whole list of possible job hits, and a Kree warship dangling just out of reach?

This particular ship has been skirting the edge of no-(civilized)-man's space for a couple cycles now, pitching in and out of the  _ Starhawk's  _ usual mid-season running path, so they've gone from prowling for miscalculating transports to carefully hunting the Kree.

This warship, based on the probes they've been jettisoning into the gravity ranges of the few exoplanets in the immediate area, is looking for a fresh and unclaimed planetoid to leech minerals off of like some kind of space-faring parasite. It's one of the Kree's fall backs for when there's no Nova to shoot at: draining whatever planets they can and moving onto the next husk just as fast. Whatever they mine would go directly back into their war machine, and into whatever system was next on their list. 

The  _ Starhawk _ 's interest in the Kree is purely a bit of sport: while Novahawks are fun to chase, they bite back with a vengeance and will actively step up their guard against future ravager incursions. Nova space is only good for sneaking into less active systems or for the big juicy scores that only the Ravagers can pull off. They've all got enough press this year to make just sneaking into Xandar on business a safety risk.

Kree space, on the other hand, is no ravager's vacation dream, and the Starhawk has got disarming, raiding, and destroying their smaller warships down to a science. The Kree have enough enemies that taking time out of their precious schedule to hunt pirates down isn’t a priority, and there are few other criminal elements they could pick from to chase the  _ Starhawk. _

If Martinex wasn't in with the boss, he'd figure Stakar had a personal vendetta to settle with Hala herself.

(After the  _ very _ thorough destruction of the warship, hunting Kree in Ravager space turns from a pastime to a personal vendetta that's logged in it's own record logs. Martinex thinks of it as "exotic bird bingo", which is what they call it whenever Yondu is around. The few who are in on the list of Kree locked behind several command codes get odd looks for mentioning it, but Stakar insists that if Yondu ever wants to get in on it, he can make that decision on his own. 

So Yondu just gives them hell for bird watching, makes several very bad jokes at Stakar’s expense, and eventually it turns into a phrase that isn’t even notable.

It continues on after the exile too. Stakar may be unwilling to speak to Yondu- who they then refer to only in vague terms or as Udonta- but he isn’t willing to let the Kree hunt the  _ Eclector _ simply because the rest of the ravager fleet won’t come to their aid. If anyone questioned him, the admiral would claim that were the Kree to do anything, it would interfere in the punishment that the tribunal had handed down. Death was an easy out, and Kree attack was not ravager-approved.

And that was probably true, all code-speak wise, but Martinex was pretty sure it had less to do with any kind of need to maintain appearances and far, far more to do with the  _ Warbird _ ’s empty dock and Martinex’s own hidden lockbox of mementos from a time where there were still 100 clans.)

\----

Better part of a century from Regulus later and Martinex is sat across from Stakar’s latest captain mark, listening to the younger man complain about how the flight maneuvers had gone wrong on his last mission. Something about  _ foils not changing fast enough,  _ and a bank that cut way too far as a result.

Martinex had already known about that, because between the head technician sending him a rather colorful notice that the  _ Warbird  _ was once  _ again _ locked into her berth for repairs and that he was sticking one of the rookies on her because he was sick of it, and the way Stakar had just about lost his cool on the bridge and slammed a solar wing into Martinex, it’d been pretty flarking hard to miss.

Smartly, he had steered the conversation away from the pilot reports and back onto their next job, one that Yondu isn’t going to be a part of, and Stakar cools off. 

“You should be a little more grateful to me.” Martinex said, matter of fact, not looking up from the latest away mission report he’s checking over. Stabbing at a calcium cube, he waited for Yondu’s response as the tirade ended. When nothing came for a minute, he glanced up. The Centurian looked- disarmed.

Aw hell. He hadn’t meant to start anything up about  _ feelings. _ Even if it’d been several years now since Yondu had gotten mission approval and started his climb up the ranks, there was still a pretty good part of him that was  _ very  _ susceptible to the opinions of any of the Flames. Sometimes what Martinex saw as ribbing Yondu took as criticism, so he put down the report and waited, trying to decide if he should walk it back. 

Finally, Yondu snorted and gave him a disbelieving look. “For what, the countless pranks?”

He resisted a sigh of relief and jammed another calcium cube into his mouth.

Alright, so maybe Martinex had taken the hazing a little too seriously back when Yondu was still new to the ship, but it was healthy. Stakar and Aleta had handled all the heavy shit, and Marty had kept everyone’s spirits up and from lower crew going out the airlock or getting tormented in the water tanks full of the suckerfish the Ogords insisted on eating. Yondu took all that  _ much  _ better than outright ribbing. It was a game that helped everyone get better at stealth and forward planning- and working around the rest of the crew who hadn’t asked to be yanked into things.

“For going through hell with the Ogords. You owe me for doing that first. Still doing it, technically- who do you think he yells at  _ before _ you." He said, and stabbed at another calcium cube. 

Yelling might have been a bit harsh- Stakar got  _ frustrated _ with Yondu, yes, but never furious. Marty had only seen the Arcturian's temper flare a scant number of times, and when that happened, there was usually a pretty damn good reason. Stakar wasn’t the  _ less _ frightening of the Ogords for nothing. It was only  _ after  _ you’d gotten him good and riled that Stakar was scarier than Aleta on a bad day.

But again, never at Yondu. Mostly he just talked out the irritation  _ at _ Marty before he called Yondu in for a talk.

It was better for most of them, that way- Yondu didn't respond well to  _ yelling _ , which was understandable given…  _ well _ , and Stakar tended towards breaking into chirps and the harsher trills of Arcturian when he just couldn't find a more common equivalent. It was something few probably realized about the admiral- he couldn't _ speak _ fluent languages outside of Arcturian. He could read near anything, but he cobbled together several dozen languages that ran through the Ravager translators. 

He just had good mimicry to make it all come across as if it was the same. Martinex hadn't even noticed until he'd been sounding out words in something that  _ didn't  _ translate, substituting in Krylorian, a language which Martinex was pretty familiar with since Krylorain’s had made up most of his sentient interactions when he was younger.

(Aleta, though, could speak in any, and run circles around a fluent even. It was one of her more terrifying skills.)

“Yondu, I had to almost eat raw fish on  _ several _ occasions.” Martinex shook his head. “I was the original pick-up.” That was true because Charlie and the Ogords went back to near the start of the fleet, Mainframe was a  _ robot with interchanging heads _ , and Krugarr.

Martinex like didn’t think too hard about Krugarr. It made his head hurt.

Martinex had been the only one who’d gotten brought in  _ without _ most of the basics and knowledge of what went on in space and how to deal with it. He’d had the important bits that were relevant to more of what he actually did for Stakar down, but he definitely hadn’t known how to take care of an m-ship or break into the things he needed to be able to for any teams he led. He hadn’t even know anything about what he  _ was _ , and even if he doesn’t know much even now, it has changed.

Yondu looked at Martinex’s plate, and then back up at him. “You’re joking, right? You can’t even  _ digest _ fish. You can just eat those nasty things and whatever liquid you can find.”

Martinex laughed. “You’d hope so.”

And maybe in another twenty years, the two of them are gonna be at one of their own funerals after a schism, but for today, Martinex is content, and so is the kid from Regulus.

**Author's Note:**

> hope yall enjoyed! i admit this was very self indulgent. martinex being dyslexic was a headcanon i came up with kindof as a "gift" so to speak for a really close friend how is dyslexic and has told me in the past that she wishes more characters were.


End file.
